About Cal Skinner

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Category Archives: Vulcan Lakes TIF

This year McHenry County Clerk Mary McClellan has made it easy to find what Tax Increment Financing Districts are extracting from our pocketbooks. Since my tax bill is composed of most of the tax districts into which Crystal Lakers pay, … Continue reading →

Since McHenry County Blog was started in reaction to the Crystal Lake City Council’s putting Route 14 next to the Vulcan gravel pit in a Tax Increment Financing District, perhaps you will excuse me for returning to the subject once … Continue reading →

Included on the Tax Rate Calculation page of the McHenry County Clerk’s Office are totals for taxes levied on property within TIF Districts. Tax Increment Financing Districts are mechanisms that allow municipalities to pry money out everyone in McHenry County … Continue reading →

A 2007 Cub Scout meeting caused me to miss Springfield politician-developer Bill Cellini’s appearance before the Crystal Lake City Council the day it awarded the contract for the development of the Vulcan Lakes TIF District. It wasn’t until a Northwest … Continue reading →

One of the several deputies fired by McHenry County Sheriff Keith Nygren has brain cancer. Unfortunately, his firing, coming after he was deposed in Zane Seipler’s Federal wrongful termination suit, came when he apparently needed health coverage. His daughter tells … Continue reading →

I claim no knowledge that the Crystal Lake City Council might be contemplating another Tax Increment Financing District east of the one altering the “streetscape” between the stone cemetery monuments at Pizza Hut and across the street from Kwik Kopy. … Continue reading →

In Friday’s Northwest Herald is an article about the $23 million that the City of Crystal Lake is scheduled to haul in over a twenty-year period as a result of a proposed Waste Management garbage transfer station to be located … Continue reading →

As much as $6 million a year tax shift from businesses in two proposed Tax Increment Financing Districts (TIFs) to us homeowners and other businesses has been proposed by the Mayor and City Council. Over 23 years, something in the … Continue reading →

A mid-day Friday city hall meeting of the tax districts affected by the two Tax Increment Financing districts proposed by the City of Crystal Lake resulting in requiring one of the proposals to receive a 3/5 majority. District representatives voted … Continue reading →

Crystal Lake has recently proposed two Tax Increment Financing districts, one along Main Street and the other along Route 14. Both will result in your tax rates being raised in future years as other local tax districts try to compensate … Continue reading →